Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views
As someone who has also been involved and has watched vessels being built in docks since the late 1970s, I can say you are comparing apples and oranges when you show slight unevenness in plates resulting from weld cooling or the noticeable dishing of plates between frames that proliforates when ships have been in service for a while and have plowed through their share of waves and equate them with the considerable uneveness of surface curvature in both direction on the brand new Vikrant's ramp sides, which could only resulting from very slack fabrication standard. The sides of the ramp show several fabrication sins. One, the curvature of the ramp side does not appear to vary smoothly in either direction. This suggest the frames underneath aren't cut very precisely, or the plates were shaped poorly and not welded to the frames. Two, the sides do not seem to fair evenly and smoothly into the ramp top. It's not clear to me how this can come about, except also the frames for the sides didn't fit the shape of the ramp. I have to say unless shadows and paint textures are playing very severe tricks on me, the sides of vikrant's ramp look to be the most crude piece of fabrication I've ever seen on the outside of a ship from a major modern yard. Only comparably crude pieces of fabrication I saw on outsides of ships were on products of small to medium sized inland riverine yards in third world countries in the 1970s and 1980s.
I agree the bow of Vikrant between the waterline and maybe 10 feet below the ramp look as good as what would be expected on a large ship with relatively sumple hull shape produces by a major modern yard. But I think the standard of fabrication of the outside of the main hull tell less about how well the innards of a carrier built innthis yard will go together than standard of fabrication of specialty parts with relatively small diameter compound curves.
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Oh, hogwash, Chuck.
Pretty much all military naval vessels have variances and incongruities when viewed close up at various portions along their hulls and superstructures. Including US vessels. But these are not a hinderance or an issue.
.....
As one who has been personally involved in the past, and carefully watched naval vessels for over 30 years, I am telling you that the bow of the Vikrant looks pretty good from a military vessels perspective.
And it is certainly bears no resemblance to your statement that they were, "hammered in place by hand."
As someone who has also been involved and has watched vessels being built in docks since the late 1970s, I can say you are comparing apples and oranges when you show slight unevenness in plates resulting from weld cooling or the noticeable dishing of plates between frames that proliforates when ships have been in service for a while and have plowed through their share of waves and equate them with the considerable uneveness of surface curvature in both direction on the brand new Vikrant's ramp sides, which could only resulting from very slack fabrication standard. The sides of the ramp show several fabrication sins. One, the curvature of the ramp side does not appear to vary smoothly in either direction. This suggest the frames underneath aren't cut very precisely, or the plates were shaped poorly and not welded to the frames. Two, the sides do not seem to fair evenly and smoothly into the ramp top. It's not clear to me how this can come about, except also the frames for the sides didn't fit the shape of the ramp. I have to say unless shadows and paint textures are playing very severe tricks on me, the sides of vikrant's ramp look to be the most crude piece of fabrication I've ever seen on the outside of a ship from a major modern yard. Only comparably crude pieces of fabrication I saw on outsides of ships were on products of small to medium sized inland riverine yards in third world countries in the 1970s and 1980s.
I agree the bow of Vikrant between the waterline and maybe 10 feet below the ramp look as good as what would be expected on a large ship with relatively sumple hull shape produces by a major modern yard. But I think the standard of fabrication of the outside of the main hull tell less about how well the innards of a carrier built innthis yard will go together than standard of fabrication of specialty parts with relatively small diameter compound curves.
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